Pages

My husband was on vacation last week and we were able to spend the last days of school vacation at some of our favorite places. One of our favorite places is the beach - the boys love playing in the waves.

Several years ago we were given some blackberries and I threw some of the seeds in the wooded area in our backyard. It is a shady spot and I didn't really think they would grow, so I was very excited when my husband said he found blackberries in the backyard! The blackberries are very small, but I'm hoping that I can transplant them to a sunnier spot and we will eventually have lots of blackberries right in our own backyard!

We picked 28 tomatoes, 21 cucumbers, 5 zucchini, a handful of green beans and bunches of cherry tomatoes from the garden.

I froze some very ripe bananas.

Our older son wanted a chocolate and strawberry cake for his birthday, so I borrowed a checkerboard cake pan from a family member and made a chocolate and strawberry checkerboard cake. He loved it!

We got a lot accomplished this week. The boys decluttered their toys and I now have a grocery bag full of toys to donate. I recycled many old magazines, that I can't remember why I was saving, and I organized the coat closet and threw away several pairs of old children's flip flops that I was saving "just in case" we needed an extra pair.

We picked 5 zucchini, 21 tomatoes, 29 cucumbers, a couple of pounds of green beans, beets and a lots of cherry tomatoes from the garden. The beets were an experiment this year and something I planted a little late in order to use up some free space in the garden. They were pretty small, but our whole family liked them and I am planning on growing more next year.

After a late start and something eating their leaves, the banana peppers finally have blossoms on them. I'm hoping that we have enough time left in the growing season for the peppers to grow to full size so that I can make pickled banana peppers. I made them for the first time last year and my husband especially liked them in sandwiches.

I made 2 batches of zucchini bread (I used 3 eggs, less sugar and 1/2 cup of applesauce to replace some of the oil and it still tasted great!), Refrigerator Pickles, and Roasted Tomato Sauce. The tomato sauce recipe is my favorite tomato recipe; it has a delicious smoky flavor and tastes great even though I don't add salt (for our heart-healthy diet).

I earned $10 this week by selling a pair of cleats on facebook.

I found a brand new backpack with the tags still on it at the second-hand store for half the original price and paid just $4.50 for it. It will be perfect for our younger son who needed a bigger backpack this year.

Our older son is turning 10 this month and he wanted to invite a few of his friends to his party. He used Avery's free Design and Print Online program and designed his own invitations. I thought that the options and images were pretty good for a free program and he really liked making his own cards.

I spent just a little over $55 for groceries this week. I bought chicken on sale for $1.69/lb. and used a coupon and paid just $.99/lb. for 3 pounds of chicken. I have used it in 3 of our meals.

We picked 3 zucchini, 5 pounds of green beans, 34 cucumbers, 9 tomatoes and several cherry tomatoes. I wasn't expecting to have dozens of cucumbers ready to be picked all at once! We ate a lot of raw cucumbers, sliced them in sandwiches, made cucumber and tomato salads and gave about half of them away.

Summer toys are on clearance and I bought jump ropes at Walmart for $.50 each that I will put in Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes.

It's always exciting when I'm surprised with unexpected savings. Our older son noticed a toy in the clearance aisle at Walmart that he really liked and I went back to the store to get it for him for his birthday this month. The price was marked as $9.88, but it rang up at the register as $5.00!

I didn't see a lot of great sales at the grocery store this week, but I will check a sales flyer from another store that comes out later this week. I have a lot of vegetables left over from last week and meat in the freezer that I am using to plan our meals. I will only have to buy staples (eggs, milk, bread, etc.) and just a few ingredients for our meals.

This week I picked 4 zucchini, 10 cucumbers, 11 pounds of green beans and some cherry tomatoes from the garden. I froze some of the green beans and I used most of the cucumbers to make Refrigerator Pickles.

In order to use up some of the zucchini, I tried a new zucchini cake recipe and it turned out to be a new favorite recipe! This Blueberry Zucchini Cake is amazing. I used less sugar and less oil for the cake and used this Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting instead of the buttercream frosting. It was perfect - not too sweet and very moist.

I made blueberry freezer jam with some of the blueberries that we picked last week.

I used very ripe bananas to make Whole Wheat Blueberry pancakes. The recipe makes quite a few pancakes so I froze the leftovers. I was glad I had leftovers since the boys requested them for breakfast the next morning!

Boneless, skinless chicken was on sale for $1.55 during a one day sale. I bought about 7 pounds and put it in the freezer.

I found two more great deals for Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes! Flip flops were on clearance for $.50 at Family Dollar and the mini Sparkle Girlz Dolls were on clearance at Walmart for $1.

I applied for a fitness reimbursement from our health insurance company. I found this reimbursement by accident 4 years ago while I was looking for information about our insurance coverage. My husband has a membership to a local gym, and the reimbursement covers over half the cost. Over the last 4 years, this reimbursement has saved us $600.

Both of our boys desperately needed new jeans for school this year. I checked the local thrift stores through the spring and summer and wasn't able to find anything in their sizes. I ordered a few pairs this week from crazy8.com during their back-to-school sale. The jeans were $8.88 with free shipping on any order. I ordered from this company a few years ago when they offered the same deal and I thought the quality for the price was very good.

This week I made a list below of the things I bought on sale, what I am going to use from the freezer and the vegetables that we'll use from the garden to make our meals. I use this list each week to plan my meals for the week. There were also a few things that I will use that I already had on hand such as pasta, bread crumbs, caesar salad dressing, etc.

I didn't notice any really good sales for meat this week, so I am going to use meat from the freezer that I bought on sale several weeks ago.

I bought a lot of broccoli on sale for $.99 last week to use this week and I will take advantage of a sale on sweet potato this week since it is a favorite at our house.